- Genre:biography & autobiography
- Sub-genre:Personal Memoirs
- Language:English
- Pages:84
- eBook ISBN:9798317805777
- Paperback ISBN:9798317805760
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Book details
Overview
Break on Through is a reflective, emotionally honest memoir about identity, belonging, and rediscovering play after the game that once defined you comes to an end.
For Bryan VanDoorninck, soccer was never just a sport. It was home, purpose, freedom, and selfhood. But when that identity began to unravel, he was forced into a deeper journey through disappointment, travel, spiritual searching, teaching, and reinvention to answer the harder question:
Who are you when the thing that shaped you no longer can?
From childhood wonder and competitive soccer, to loss, Israel, education, entrepreneurship, and the eventual creation of BVADO, Break on Through traces the long path back to joy, connection, and a more truthful way of living. At its heart, this is a story about what happens when achievement stops being enough and how play, presence, and belonging can bring you back to yourself.
This memoir is for former athletes, seekers, educators, and anyone who has ever felt stuck between who they were and who they are becoming.
Description
What happens when the game ends and the version of you that lived most fully inside it disappears too?
For Bryan VanDoorninck, soccer was never just a sport. It was identity. It was belonging. It was the place where life made the most sense. But when the structure, certainty, and selfhood that came with the game began to fall away, he found himself facing a quieter and more disorienting loss: not just the end of a dream, but the question of who he was without it.
Break on Through is a deeply reflective memoir about growing up, getting lost, and finding your way back to yourself.
From childhood wonder and competitive soccer to the silence after sport, career confusion, travel, spiritual searching, teaching in Israel, and eventually building a life centered on play, purpose, and human connection, Bryan traces the long road from performance to presence. What emerges is not a tidy success story, but an honest journey through identity, grief, reinvention, and joy.
This is a book for:
- former athletes navigating life after sports
- adults questioning the path they’ve been told to want
- seekers searching for meaning, belonging, and renewal
- teachers, coaches, and guides who know that play changes lives
At its core, Break on Through is about one universal truth:
You may not miss the sport as much as you miss who you were when you played.
And maybe the game never really leaves you. Maybe you just have to find your way back to the part of yourself that felt most alive.
If you’ve ever felt stuck between chapters, disconnected from your old identity, or hungry for a more honest and joyful life, this story will meet you there.
